Punjab hikes sugarcane price to Rs 380 per quintal
Darpan News Desk IANS, 03 Oct, 2022 01:05 PM
Chandigarh, Oct 3 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday announced an increase in the price of sugarcane to Rs 380 per quintal, a hike of Rs 20.
Announcing this on the floor of Assembly, he said the farmers will get the additional amount under State Agreed Price (SAP) of sugarcane as compared to the last year.
With this decision, the state government will spend additional Rs 200 crore annually to benefit the farmers.
Mann said the farmers of the state eagerly want to adopt sugarcane crop under crop diversification, but they are hesitant for it due to lack of adequate price and timely payment of the crop.
At present, sugarcane is cultivated on just 1.25 lakh hectares in Punjab, while the total crushing capacity of sugar mills was around 2.50 lakh hectares. This is why the state government has decided to enhance the price to supplement the income of farmers, he said.
Informing the House about the present status of the payments, the Chief Minister said cooperative sugar mills have already paid the entire dues of the farmers but two private sugar mills have not paid the dues yet.
He said the owners of the mills have fled from the country, adding the state government has already initiated the process to confiscate their assets to pay the pending dues of the farmers.
Accordingly, the police registered a case under sections 302 (murder), 307 (atttempt to murder) and 34 (common intention) at the Adarsh Nagar police station and during investigation, it was revealed that deceased had a quarrel with the five accused classmates in their school, due to which they murdered him to take revenge, while they were going home.
Moving a resolution to this regard, Mann said that the main function of the Punjab State Vigilance Commission is to enquire or cause enquires into complaints alleging commission of offences by a public servant under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988, Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018.
In spite of the pressure and demand to step down, the accused seer has categorically refused to quit, according to sources. The meeting was held in the leadership of former minister H Ekantaiah in this regard and discussed future course of action.
According to information, the deceased used to beat the juveniles and would often snatch their money to buy alcohol and drugs. The juveniles had been planning to take revenge for this. A senior police official said that the deceased was identified as Ajay, a resident of Labor Colony in Outer Delhi. The official said that the juveniles stabbed him repeatedly and fled from the crime scene.
The murder of Brar, who was a close relative of Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar, has triggered an inter-gang rivalry between the Davinder Bambiha gang and the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, leading to a spate of murders in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and the National Capital Region (NCR) Delhi. Brar was shot dead outside a nightclub in Chandigarh in October 2020.
It was alleged that the accused illegally collected public deposits throughout Odisha by alluring the people with various deposit schemes falsely promising high returns and did not refund the maturity amount and thereby cheated the investors of their due amount.
